


The one where they are soulmates

by chicklette



Series: Popcorn Bucket [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Soulmates, shrunkyclunks (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 20:58:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13419522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicklette/pseuds/chicklette
Summary: Not everyone has a soulmate.  Not everyone gets words, or a name, or a symbol.But Bucky has words, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't find happiness until he finds his soulmate.





	The one where they are soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr ficlet about soulmates. Lately I just want to write allll the soulmates.

Once upon a time, it was names.  A child was born and within days, a name would appear across their wrist.  That would be their soulmate.

Then it evolved into words. A string of words would appear on your skin, and you would know your soulmate by things they would say.

Later, it became matching freckles, or sometimes scars.  It became empathy across oceans, feeling what your soulmate felt – heat or cold or pain or joy.  In one well-documented case, it was matching heterochromia of the iris – they each had a matching spot of orange in their otherwise blue eyes.

By the late 20th century, soulmarks were so varied that almost anything could pass for one. Which meant that, with the exception of the rare few who still got names or words, soulmarks had all but died out.

People without obvious soulmarks had moved on.  They found partners that seemed to fit.  They clung tightly to their similarities (I love that song, too!  We must be soulmates!), and brushed aside differences.  They strove to be happy.  To find peace.

The heart knows, though. It always knows.

It became convenient, when one grew tired of one’s lover, to say “oh, my heart knew it wasn’t right.”  Or, “I felt my soulmate calling to me.”  Or even “I thought they were the one, but they weren’t.”

Actual soulmarks became something not to be treasured, or praised, but to be reviled.

“It’s a fake,” people would say, and sometimes they were right.  The art of tattooing had come far.

“It was always fake,” others would say.  Because, can you imagine the despair of it?  Knowing that you have a soulmate, and never, ever being able to find them. Knowing that the little trio of freckles on your forearm perfectly matched the trio on someone else’s, but in a world so big, how would you ever find them?

No, better to think it all a sham.

In time, the legend of soulmarks become nothing more than that: a legend.

“I’m telling you,” Clint says, “This girl is my soulmate.”  He flops back onto their sofa, staring off into nothing,

“Come on, man,” Bucky says. “You know that’s all bullshit. Soulmates don’t exist.”  It’s an old game they play.

“Sure they do,” Natasha says, and stretches her legs to lay her feet across Clint’s lap.  “Just not like in the fairytales.”

“Watch it, Nat.  That sounds an awful lot like you believe.” Bucky gives her an even look from his position across the room.  He has a pot of soup on the stove, simmering away.  Lately, he’s been starving and has no idea why.  He just can’t seem to fill up.

Shrugging, Natasha says, “Of course they still exist.  We’ve just gotten bad at recognizing them.”

They do this dance all the time.  Bucky insisting that soulmates don’t exist.  Nat insisting that they do.  Both of them lying through their teeth.

What else is he gonna do?

“Natasha believing in love?” Clint counters.  “Call the press.  The apocalypse is nigh.”

“Love is for children,” she answers.  “Besides, _we’re_ soulmates.  The three of us.  We belong to each other.”  The way she stares at Bucky when she says that, he can’t help but feel intimidated. “No matter what some stupid mark might say.”

Tasting the soup, Bucky adds another pinch of cumin and sets the heat to low.  In another hour, they’ll have black bean soup with chorizo, and he’s picked up a dozen bolillo’s that he plans to split and grill with butter. It satisfies his need for the meal to be both filling _and_ cheap.

He’s trying not to take it personally, and he knows that Nat doesn’t mean it that way, but he can’t help it. She knows he has words.  Actual words that showed up on the inside of his bicep when he was seventeen.

His parents always swore that they were each other’s soulmates, and Bucky believed them.  His sister had a small, sunburst scar on her left shoulder that couldn’t be attributed to any accident, and it was said that true soulmates were more likely to produce offspring with true soulmates.  

So it stands to reason.

But his parents also cautioned him to keep it secret.  When soulmates first became scarce, people with words would advertise them, hoping to draw their soulmate to them.  Instead, they frauds – people with low morals who would use the words, or sometimes change their names, for nothing more than either a little bit of money or worse, notoriety.  

Nat saw Bucky’s words one day when he was sick.  She’d brought him orange juice and antibiotics, and he’d stripped off his shirt in his sleep, the fever making him sweat.

“Dumb tattoo,” he’d said, when he realized she was staring.  

As if they knew how rare they were, the words were easy to pass off as something else.  A secret, hidden in plain sight.

“You know, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” she’d said, stroking her finger across the words.

“Nat,” he answered.  “Come on.  It means _everything._ ”

She’d shrugged and tossed her curls at him, and he’d sighed and asked her to keep it a secret.  She had, but she never resists the opportunity to needle him about it.  To try to prove to him that it didn’t mean anything, that the close friendship that he shares with her and with Clint is enough.  He doesn’t know how to explain to her that something inside of him is missing, and he won’t get it back until he finds his soulmate.  

His one.

Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t dated.  He’s dated plenty: mostly girls, but a few guys, enough to know that he doesn’t really have a preference either way.  He figures that’s good – widen the field a little.  When the times comes, he won’t care.  

He’s heard the stories – soulmates who were perfectly compatible in every way, except one.  And while they might say they’re still happy without sex, Bucky’s not so sure he believes them.

Orgasms are fucking great.

After lunch, he takes a walk.  He doesn’t know if it’s a soulmate thing, a weather thing, or just a Bucky thing, but he’s been restless lately, too much energy all pent up with nowhere to go. He thinks it might be related to the food thing.  The _hunger_ thing.  

A few hours of roaming the city usually puts it to rest.  

As he walks, he thinks about Natasha.  In a way, he wants her to be right.  He wants to meet someone, maybe at a party, and like the way they look, the way their hand feels in his.  He wants them to like him back, maybe for reasons he hasn’t even thought of yet.  He wants to learn new things about himself while he’s discovering someone else.

An old soul, his mother called him.

Lonely, is what he calls himself.

Fisting his hands in his pockets, Bucky walks down the street, kicking at fallen leaves.  In the twilight, he huddles down into his hoodie, winter already licking into the fall air.

He’s watching his feet, not thinking about anything when he runs into someone standing still on the sidewalk, staring in wonder at the world around him.

The man reaches out to steady Bucky.  He’s tall, with blonde hair and navy blue eyes, and the faint smile on his face is something that Bucky thinks he could probably fall into and never come back up.

“No matter where I go -” the man says, and when he touches Bucky’s arm the entire world stills and falls away until there’s nothing left, just Bucky, just this man.

“  -Brooklyn will always be home.”  They say the words in unison, voices tinged with disbelief, quiet smiles on their faces as they take one another in.

“There you are,” Bucky says. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Here I am,” the man says. He cups the side of Bucky’s face with one big hand, thumb stroking across Bucky’s cheek.  “I’m Steve,” he says and Bucky smiles.  

“I’m Bucky.  It is so good to finally meet you, Steve.”  They are in each other’s space, and what Steve said was right.  Nothing else has ever felt so much like home.

The night falls down around them as their lips brush for the very first time.  The stars in their zenith twinkle and shine, sighing across the skies, watching a new love bloom.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [chicklette.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/chicklette) Come say hey.


End file.
